“Morgan O’Kane is New York’s banjo-playing, tambourine-toting, hillbilly-punk journeyman” (Narrative.ly).
O’Kane plays banjo like no other. Originally hailing from Virginia; He currently resides in Brooklyn when he is not on tour, where he sometimes plays in the subway and on the street. The music is “to bluegrass and old timey what punk was to rock in the late seventies” (Ian Spafford / www.stirrings.org.uk) Deeply steeped in old traditions, O’Kane treats the banjo differently than you’ve heard it before and brings a punk sensibility to his music. Joined by steel guitarist, Zeke Healy and flugelhorn player J.R. Hankins, the trio bring their distinct form of punk bluegrass back to Dublin where they last played opening for co-collaborators Lankum at Vicar St. in 2017.

Re-writing the rules for Irish folk music are Dublin four-piece band Lynched. Their remarkable debut album “Cold Old Fire” released in 2014 has garnered awards and attention from press and public and in the last year the band have gone from playing small folk clubs to being invited to perform on "Later with Jools Holland” appearing at international festivals like Edmonton, Dranouter, Sidmoutth, Cambridge along with prestigious and rapturously received sets at Electric Picnic and Castlepalooza. This Vicar Street appearance will mark their return to Dublin following an exceptionally busy touring year and anyone who has been at recent Lynched gigs will know that this promises to be a very special night.

‘The most convincing folk band to come out of Ireland in years.’ ★★★★★

The Guardian

‘They do mark a turning point in folk… that authentic voice of the streets is back in a big way.’

Mark Radcliffe BBC Radio

‘Anarchic, yet connected, rootsy and gutsy… I love their music, it is just so damn good!’

Mike Harding

‘The most exciting album of traditional Irish song in decades. - TradConnect

‘A sure contender for any Irish album of the year lists. - Songlines

‘A passionate, utterly engrossing album.’ - fRoots

Lynched are a four-piece traditional folk group from Dublin, Ireland, who combine distinctive four-part vocal harmonies with arrangements of uilleann pipes, concertina, Russian accordion, fiddle and guitar. Their repertoire spans humorous Dublin music-hall ditties and street-songs, classic ballads from the Traveller tradition, traditional Irish and American dance tunes, and their own original material.

Formed as an experimental-psychedelic-folk-punk-duo by brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch in the early 2,000’s, the group has gone through various incarnations and taken part in a number of musical projects, including recording for movie soundtracks and TV documentaries. The current format however, is considered by all four members to be the most focussed, productive and musically exciting to date.

As their interest in traditional music and song grew, the brothers began to attend sessions around Dublin, where they formed friendships with Cormac Mac Diarmada and Radie Peat, amongst a whole host of impressive young musicians. When Ian began work in theIrish Traditional Music Archive, after completing a folklore masters, he had the rare opportunity to record in the ITMA studio with friend, colleague and in-house technicianDanny Diamond, whenever a spare evening presented itself, so he and Daragh asked Cormac and Radie to provide some backing vocals and instrumentation on “one or two songs”.

After some preliminary practice sessions it became obvious to all involved that something much more interesting was happening, and the group quickly became a dedicated four-piece, gaining experience and confidence as they played together at the Grand Folk Clubgigs, which they hosted monthly. They also applied around this time for the Arts Council’s 2013 Deis Recording Award, for which they were fortuitously approved.

‘Cold Old Fire’ was recorded by Danny in ITMA in August of 2013, and although fundamentally an album of traditional Irish song, heavily influenced by Irish legends such as Frank Harte, Planxty and The Dubliners, subtle traces of the group’s collective influences can be detected, from American old-timey music, ambient techno and psychedelic folk, to black metal, punk and rock n’ roll. The album was released in May of 2014 to a packed Button Factory in Dublin.

Since making the album, the group have completed a six week coast-to-coast tour of the US, been invited to some of the world’s most renowned music festivals, includingCambridge, Sidmouth and Edmonton, as well as performing in the last two years alongside some notable artists, including Sam Amidon, Blackbird Raum, Daoiri Farrell, Fred Fortune,Mike Gangloff, Dick Gaughan, Paddy & Séamus Glackin, Barry Gleeson, Andy Irvine, Landless,Lau, Lúnasa, Leyla McCalla, Jem Mitchell, Liam O’Connor & Seán McKeon, Morgan O’Kane,Lisa O’Neill, Alasdair Roberts, Tim Scanlon, Sharon Shannon and Skipper’s Alley.